Air India 182 Report Sets Bhopal Example

A woman pauses at a memorial honoring the victims of Air India flight 182 at Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday.

A high-powered panel of Indian government ministers meets today to discuss the aftermath of the criminal verdict in the recent Bhopal gas tragedy case, which saw seven former officials of Union Carbide India Ltd. sentenced to two years in prison for causing death by negligence.

Though Bhopal has featured little in the news in the past few years, the verdict prompted a massive outpouring of anger against the government, the judiciary, Union Carbide and its former Chairman Warren Anderson, prompting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to demand a report pronto from the group of ministers.

There are various reports of what the group will discuss, from reinvigorating attempts to extradite Mr. Anderson to increasing compensation to the victims. We hope that the group goes at its task with the seriousness of purpose and honest intent that it deserves and that it doesn’t become a forum for further whitewashing 26 years after thousands died in the world’s worst industrial accident.

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Indeed, the group of ministers would do well to try to achieve the same level of completeness, frankness and respect for victims that was obvious from a report about another tragedy from that era: the bombing of Air India flight 182 in 1985 over the west coast of Ireland as it flew from Canada to India, killing 329.

As with many things concerning Bhopal, the Canadian report, released Thursday, was a long time coming. But former Supreme Court Justice John C. Major, who headed the investigation into the Air India crash has garnered considerable praise for the thoroughness and of the report even if it was unsettling.

The commission he headed sharply criticized the Royal Canadian Mountain Police, Canada’s intelligence services and its government for not preventing the bombing – and the report recommended a series of steps that still need to be taken to improve security. Some noted that one of the report’s major attributes was its concern for the victims and the demand for greater compensation for their families.

The Indian government could do a lot worse than this testimonial from the Edmonton Journal for its own response to the Air India commission’s work: ”The current government is to be commended for launching the Major inquiry, for not flinching from his unflattering remarks about continuing failure, and above all for promising that an apology and compensation will be forthcoming for the bereaved — who Major wrote ‘have often been treated as adversaries, as if they somehow brought this calamity upon themselves.’”

The reaction among victims’ families to the Major report was bittersweet, as the Hindustan Times noted. But that’s an improvement over how the families of Bhopal victims feel, which is pretty much universally bitter.

“I hope that after this (Major) report, the government will change their attitude,” said Chandrasekhar Sankurathri, who lost his wife and two children in the bombing and now runs a charitable foundation in India in his wife’s name, according to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. Bhopal survivors will be hoping the Group of Ministers can deliver similar impact here.

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